Warning: contains spoilers for Generations Shattered #1!
The Teen Titans are no strangers to weird events. The team of former sidekicks turned teenage heroes has embraced the unpredictability of their life full of assassins, aliens, demons and the occasional team-up or crossover with other DC Comics characters as a necessary aspect of fighting crime. However, one of the team’s weirder team-ups occurred recently in Generations Shattered #1 where a time-traveling Kamandi interrupts a battle between the Titans and their old enemy Deathstroke.
In Generations Shattered #1, a group of iconic writers and artists tell the story of Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth, whose post-apocalyptic future is destroyed by a chronal storm following the events of Dark Nights: Death Metal. He is saved by a future version of Booster Gold, who – severely injured – gifts Kamandi a futuristic version of his trusty droid sidekick Skeets and his mission to travel throughout DC Comics history to gather a team of individuals to confront the person responsible for this unstoppable wave of destruction. Despite little to no knowledge of his world’s past, Kamandi gains assistance from what’s effectively a sentient, time-travelling glove to accomplish this momentous task.
One of Kamandi’s time jumps interrupts a battle between the Teen Titans and their perpetual nemesis, Deathstroke the Terminator. While the distraction briefly gives Slade the advantage, Beast Boy’s powers remind Kamandi of the talking animals of his own time, with his excessive affection freaking out the usually charismatic and quick-talking Gar Logan. Revealing that he’s arrived to get the most powerful member of the team, he witnesses Starfire’s powers and time jumps her away from the battle. With Slade having escaped and down one key member, the Titans are left thoroughly confused, although assured of Starfire’s safety and Kamandi’s good intentions.
Not only does Kamandi cozy up to Beast Boy, stroking him with a futuristic robot that’s encouraging him to kidnap Gar’s friend (and the wrong one at that), but Kamandi appears at a moment when the Teen Titans’ roster includes the powerful metahuman Terra. Tara Markov was a powerful yet arrogant member of the team who was revealed to have been a double agent working with Deathstroke the entire time. In the iconic ‘Judas Contract’ storyline, the Titans were defeated and turned over to their enemies, but Terra’s psychopathic behavior took a turn for the worse when the unhinged villain unleashed the full might of her abilities against her former teammates and was killed by a collapsing building. Although her betrayal cast a heavy shadow over the Titans, especially Beast Boy, a statue of Terra was placed in the memorial in Titans Tower.
At this point in history, that betrayal has yet to happen, as Deathstroke and Terra are still pretending as if they aren’t working with each other. The dramatic irony is the Teen Titans are randomly paired up with a young man who means well but creeps them out while they’re working with someone they love who will badly betray them. The Teen Titans don’t know who they’re working with on any level, and nor does Kamandi really understand why he’s there or what to do, with the truth buried under layers of hidden or misunderstood intentions. When the Teen Titans look back on this moment in the future, it’ll be one that is only darkened by the knowledge of what followed shortly after.
